Personal computers are becoming the preferred entertainment hub in the homes of many people. This practice has become increasingly common in recent times due to changes in the way people obtain entertainment content for their own consumption. There is a nearly infinite amount of entertainment content available in digital form. The digital aspect of entertainment content such as, for example, music and video has led people to treat their personal computer as their entertainment hub since it is generally the main device used to obtain and store the entertainment content.
Music and video content generally have differing demands on an audio playback system due to differences in output signals for music and video content. Nowadays, it is nearly a certainty that digital music content are recorded and distributed in stereo, while movie content is often provided with multi-channel audio signals for play back on multi-channel speaker systems. As such, pairing an appropriate audio reproduction system to the personal computer has become an important decision affecting playback quality of the entertainment content because a choice of either a multi-channel or a stereo system would adversely affect sound reproduction quality of music and video content respectively.
Several speaker systems have been introduced which attempt to play back both stereophonic and multi-channel content in an optimal manner. There are audio systems which rely on bouncing audio signals off walls to simulate surround sound effects. Another type of system is like that of the PS2000 system from Creative Technology Ltd which utilizes audio processing algorithms to provide the requisite surround effects. Both of the aforementioned systems have gotten both plaudits and brickbats. The mixed reception stems from the fact that the systems which rely on bouncing signals off walls are heavily dependent on where it is located with respect to walls (as these systems do not work well in nearfield applications) while the PS2000 is heavily dependent on an anatomical structure of a person, specifically, head size, shape, and pinea structure.
Thus, there exists a need for a sound reproduction system which is able to consistently reproduce music and video content at an optimal level regardless of location or anatomical structure of a person.